By Karan Thapar

“Switch on the BBC” said Ashok eagerly as he rushed into my office. His normally placid features were in a state of considerable excitement. His eyes were shining.

“What’s happened?” I was struggling with Ian McEwan’s Atonement and now that I had found a way into the book I was reluctant to give it up.

“Look” he said switching on the television and gesticulating towards the screen with a sweeping flourish. A practised impresario could not have done better.

I stared uncomprehendingly. The channel was in the middle of another HARDtalk. The only difference I could detect was that they had three guests and not one. But why would that work Ashok into such a lather?

“They’re discussing whether the Queen serves any useful purpose. That man” and Ashok stabbed one of his stubby fingers in his direction “is saying the monarchy should be abolished. And he seems to be winning the argument.”

I was perplexed. I couldn’t fathom why this discussion was so important.

“Have you forgotten that today is the Queen’s Jubilee? The BBC is marking 50 years of her reign by questioning her utility! What an amazing country! Can you imagine anything like that ever happening in India?”

It took me a while to understand Ashok’s response. He was marvelling at the fact that the BBC could question the monarchy, the very symbol of British life, on such an historic occasion. But he was also surprised the British did not find this an unacceptable thing to do. Practically all day the BBC had broadcast the Jubilee celebrations live. The gold coach, the church service, the Guild Hall lunch and the speeches. But now in the afternoon they were questioning all of it.

In fact, the BBC seemed to have provided a platform to the Queen’s republican opponents. Ashok found that unbelievable.

“Kamal hai yaar.”

He was now sitting opposite me. But I don’t think he was listening to the interview so much as lost in his own thoughts about it.

“Agar aisi cheez Hindustan me hoti to isse anti-national samjha jata. Humme is mulk se abhi bhi bahut seekhna hei.”

Ashok’s incredulity reminded me of my own reaction to the BBC years before. My mind went back to a night in 1983, in the middle of the Falklands war and shortly after a British hunter-killer submarine had blown up the Argentinean warship Belgrano. Five hundred Argentine sailors had been killed. The BBC programme Panorama questioned whether this was necessary. As I watched I knew I was witnessing one of the most extreme examples of freedom of speech. Questioning your country’s ‘victories’ in the middle of a war, when your own soldiers are under attack, is never easy. An expression of concern for the enemy’s dead is even more difficult. However the BBC had put the value of free speech above the price it would have to pay for it. Mrs. Thatcher and the Tories were furious. The tabloid press weighed in on their side. But the BBC stood by its convictions.

A few years later, after the Lockerbie crash, when American and British planes bombed Tripoli killing Gaddhafi’s three year old daughter, the BBC was once again at the forefront questioning whether this was a justified response. I remember their footage of Gaddhafi’s destroyed home. It infuriated the government. It also proved the BBC’s point.

“You know the interesting thing about all this?” Ashok suddenly asked as I finished recounting my own experiences. He had the look of a man who has just discovered a startling truth. Archimedes, no doubt, would have worn a similar expression as he jumped out of his bath.

“The test of freedom of speech is not when the point you’re making is right” he said. Ashok’s smile suggested he was rather pleased with this discovery. I waited to hear more. “The real test is when the point could be wrong.”

He could have added that the test could also come when the point is hurtful, or embarrassing, or just controversial. But that would be mere detail. We’re all prepared to hear the other man’s view when we agree with him. It’s when we don’t – or, worse, when he’s criticising you – that tolerance or acceptance becomes difficult.

“Would we in India pass this test?” It seemed the obvious question to ask. But Ashok took his time answering. For a moment I even thought he had not heard. When he replied his voice was unusually soft. It was almost as if he was speaking sotto voce.

“We don’t know the difference between criticism and disloyalty.” And then, after a long pause, he added : “We can’t accept that criticism can be a sign of concern, even of fondness. In our eyes criticism is always proof of dushmani.”